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Published: April 18th 2007
We arrive in Amhedabad at 5am. It is still dark but already warm. We take a rickshaw to the centre and walk to the river as the sun comes up and find somewhere shady for breakfast. After omlettes and fresh lime sodas and reading the local papers, we head out to see the city. Ahmedebad is the capital of the Gujarat state and made itself by being the textile centre of India, so you could say it is the Manchester of India. It is also a city with an interesting history.
First thing we see is Dada Hari Wav, an amazing octagonal well on multiple levels. We are shown round a nearby mosque by an old muslim guy, and then walk through some narrow back streets surrounded by small children who take us to see Mata Bhavani's well, a similar structure now used as a Hindi Temple.
The textile museum is unfortunately closed, so we next go to Sabarmati Ashram, the home and headquarters of Mahatma Ghandi during his long years working to get the British out of India. The air is cool is the ashram, but outside it is now in the 40s.
On our way back to the centre, Lucia sees a Jain temple and we go to look. The Hatteesingh Temple is quite impressive and we are given 2 rupees as we leave as a present from God.
The Gujarat state has the largest proportion of Jains in India. Jains have compassion for all life, human and non-human, and their stance on non-violence means all Jains are vegetarian. Some Indian regions have been strongly influenced by Jains and often the majority of the local non-Jain population has also become vegetarian. This is definitely true in Gujarat, where 90%!o(MISSING)f the population is vegetarian. After so many years in Czech feeling a freak for not eating flesh, here I feel normal.
Gujarat also happens to be home of the Indian lunch favourite called
/"> Thali.
So we head to a recommended restaurant to check it out and it is great fun! It is all you can eat, with 7 different dishes and 5 types of bread. We get rice, dal, vegetables, chapati, samosas, puri, papad, curd, chutney, pickle, mango juice and for desert gulab jamun (sweet dough balls). The waiters come round continuously filling up any dish we have
finished until we can't eat any more. It costs 1 pound / 40Kc.
After lunch we walk though a tacky market and find a lovely mosque with hundreds of pillars that Lucia really likes (I can't go in because I'm wearing shorts). It is too hot now, over 45 degrees. We head for Kankaria Lake but see a shopping mall on the way and stop there to sit in an A/C coffee shop and drink lemon ice tea. As evening comes and the city cools slightly, we visit Sarkej Rosa, a collection of old Islamic building south of the city. I am allowed to enter this mosque and am hit on the head several times with a brush as a blessing when I leave.
Back at the train station, we spend a few minutes looking at the shaking minarets (designing not to fall if there is an earthquake) before catching our sleeper train at 11.15pm to Udaipur in Rajasthan. A long, hot, tiring and absolutely fascinating day...
joe
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amazing stuff Jain Pavel ! getting hungry here..... waddyathink thali n knedliky ? isn't that the same guy from other blogs - he travelling with ya too ?